Illinois Poverty Update

April 2018

Millions of people in Illinois experience poverty or are living on the brink. That societal position keeps opportunities out of their reach and nearly guarantees worse outcomes in every quality of life domain – making ALL of us worse off.

Almost one-third of Illinoisans are poor or low income.

Poverty remains higher than pre-recession levels – which means that Illinois is doing worse than the national average at recovering from recession-era losses.

Poverty continues to grow in the Chicago suburbs, as it has over the past few decades.

Children, women, and people of color have the highest poverty rates.

Women’s poverty rates are over 20 percent higher than men’s.

Certain gender and racial groups are much more likely to experience poverty than others: black women experience poverty at a rate 3.5 times higher than white men, while black men’s poverty rate is 3.2 times higher and Latina women’s is 2.5 times higher than white men.

Discriminatory practices, policies, and social structures contribute to highly disparate poverty rates for women – especially when they are members of other historically oppressed groups, such as people of color, trans people, and people with disabilities. These persistent disparities by gender and race demand that we dismantle policies that perpetuate them.